Original Post
Note: This is an unecessarily long car thread. Yep, bought a new car (first time in 8.5 years!), and it's basically the opposite of my previous car. So because I can, a little about my first (second) car: The 1988 Mustang 5.0. 
I bought this my senior year of high school, after working long and hard at Wal-Mart I was able to save up and get what I was looking for. Those who occasionally look at my journal will see details of it there. Basically, it has been an amazing car, having nearly 180k miles on it now (50k by me), it has held up exceptionally well, and has hardly cost me anything to maintain (fuel pump (no-name brand) and air pump were the only things to break). Also, for an 80's technology V8, it gets quite good gas mileage, topping out at 27mpg highway (24-26 hwy consistently). This car isn't going anywhere, however, I have plans (as can be seen in my journal) to twin-turbo it using junkyard turbo's...and 5000 dollars in supporting mods lol. It's gonna be my weekend warrior, and I look forward to get started actually tearing it apart (I have most of the necessary parts already). Removing all the boring details, after getting a new job I needed/wanted something a little nicer to drive, and turns out my brother needed to borrow something while fixing the tranny in his car. So I made a couple payments and effectively rented my Dad's (previously my brother's) 2003 Mustang Cobra. This was a lot of fun, with some minor mods it's pushing about 500hp, which makes it rare to find something faster on the streets. I was considering tranfering the loan to my name and keeping it, but it's not the same when you didn't go looking for the car you really wanted, just 'inherited' one. Also, it didn't make a lot of sense, even to me, to only own two V8 Mustangs. Besides, anyone can buy a fast car, I'd rather make one fast. So I set out to find something I could drive year round, somewhat reliable, and basically a second car while my 5.0 is in the shop (my garage) for an undetermined amount of time. I wanted something that looked cool (in my view), fun to drive, but also got good gas mileage. I also wanted to try an import, because I'd never owned one before. After looking at various options, I settled on the car I fell in love with at the 2003 Denver Auto Show: 2003 Mazda Mazdaspeed Protege: 
There were 1750 sold in the US, half black, half Spicy Orange :D. I pretty much had to get the orange one. It's a 170hp 2-liter turbo charged front wheel drive. At the time of its release, it was the best handling front wheel drive car sold in North America (.88g skidpad). Successor to the Protege MP3 (the first factory car with an MP3 player), it has a 450watt 7-speaker stereo, which naturally was jacked by the previous owner. Fortunatally it still has a deck and the 6 inside speakers, but no amp or sub. No big deal to me. Rated for 24/30 mpg, I took it up to South Dakota (over 400 mile one way trip the day after I bought it, brought some tools lol) and averaged about 31 with the AC on, so not too bad. It isn't fast, even though it's turbo'd, but it is a lot of fun to drive and has enough power to pass people on the highway. Given the color and spoiler, however, I expect every ricer out there to want to race, and I expect more attention from cops than I'd really like, but oh well, I really like the car. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about my new car, so I just thought I'd share :).
I bought this my senior year of high school, after working long and hard at Wal-Mart I was able to save up and get what I was looking for. Those who occasionally look at my journal will see details of it there. Basically, it has been an amazing car, having nearly 180k miles on it now (50k by me), it has held up exceptionally well, and has hardly cost me anything to maintain (fuel pump (no-name brand) and air pump were the only things to break). Also, for an 80's technology V8, it gets quite good gas mileage, topping out at 27mpg highway (24-26 hwy consistently). This car isn't going anywhere, however, I have plans (as can be seen in my journal) to twin-turbo it using junkyard turbo's...and 5000 dollars in supporting mods lol. It's gonna be my weekend warrior, and I look forward to get started actually tearing it apart (I have most of the necessary parts already). Removing all the boring details, after getting a new job I needed/wanted something a little nicer to drive, and turns out my brother needed to borrow something while fixing the tranny in his car. So I made a couple payments and effectively rented my Dad's (previously my brother's) 2003 Mustang Cobra. This was a lot of fun, with some minor mods it's pushing about 500hp, which makes it rare to find something faster on the streets. I was considering tranfering the loan to my name and keeping it, but it's not the same when you didn't go looking for the car you really wanted, just 'inherited' one. Also, it didn't make a lot of sense, even to me, to only own two V8 Mustangs. Besides, anyone can buy a fast car, I'd rather make one fast. So I set out to find something I could drive year round, somewhat reliable, and basically a second car while my 5.0 is in the shop (my garage) for an undetermined amount of time. I wanted something that looked cool (in my view), fun to drive, but also got good gas mileage. I also wanted to try an import, because I'd never owned one before. After looking at various options, I settled on the car I fell in love with at the 2003 Denver Auto Show: 2003 Mazda Mazdaspeed Protege: There were 1750 sold in the US, half black, half Spicy Orange :D. I pretty much had to get the orange one. It's a 170hp 2-liter turbo charged front wheel drive. At the time of its release, it was the best handling front wheel drive car sold in North America (.88g skidpad). Successor to the Protege MP3 (the first factory car with an MP3 player), it has a 450watt 7-speaker stereo, which naturally was jacked by the previous owner. Fortunatally it still has a deck and the 6 inside speakers, but no amp or sub. No big deal to me. Rated for 24/30 mpg, I took it up to South Dakota (over 400 mile one way trip the day after I bought it, brought some tools lol) and averaged about 31 with the AC on, so not too bad. It isn't fast, even though it's turbo'd, but it is a lot of fun to drive and has enough power to pass people on the highway. Given the color and spoiler, however, I expect every ricer out there to want to race, and I expect more attention from cops than I'd really like, but oh well, I really like the car. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about my new car, so I just thought I'd share :).
